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The sixth phone from boutique Android smartphone OEM OnePlus launches today at noon Eastern; the global launch will be livestreamed on their YouTube channel (see above). If you want to see the phone for yourself OnePlus is also hosting pop-up events in New York London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Here are the details for the NYC event:

At this point almost everything about the phone is known except for its price; check out the specs in last week's post here, but note that the listed starting price of $479 USD has yet to be confirmed. There will apparently be two trim levels and three colors—silver (or gunmetal) and soft gold will be available with 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage, while black will be exclusive to the upgraded model with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB of storage.

When its price is finally revealed I think it will be important to keep the competition in mind. A 5.5 inch Google Pixel XL with 128 GB of storage currently lists for $869 USD, as does a 5.5 inch, 128 GB iPhone 7 Plus. And the iPhone doesn't even run Android!

Anyone purchasing a OnePlus 5 will at least be able to save some money on accessories using any one of the referral links in this helpful reddit thread.

Feel free to add your thoughts on the phone and/or launch event below. If the price is right I'll probably end up ordering one.

GSMArena posted an interesting feature over the weekend, listing the three most popular phones on their site, by year, for the last decade. The results may be surprising until you consider the global reach of this domain, which at the very least includes English-reading audiences in the UK and Europe. Anyway, here are the results, with bonus links to each device's listing:

I can attest to the popularity of the Nokia N8 in 2010; I so desperately wanted it that when WOM World wouldn't lend me one I bought a Nexus One instead almost purely out of spite. Best decision ever—Nokia's complete absence in the listings thereafter shows how their switch to Windows Phone went down with their loyal customers...

For mobile users in Canada the biggest news story of the week, perhaps the year, is a new decision by Canada's Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to free users from carrier locks on their devices starting December 1st, 2017. Even better, effective this date new users who are unhappy with their carrier will be able to return their hardware and walk away at no cost, so long as they've used less than half of the data bucket on their monthly plan.

It's not hard to see what the CRTC is trying to do here, to force Canada's Big Three carriers to compete more honestly on the strength of their networks, and hopefully price. I don't actually think that the price thing is going to play out like the CRTC wants it to; if recent history has taught us anything we know that carriers will always find a way to make up for lost revenue at the expense of their customers. In other words, come December 1st plan prices will almost certainly go up.

And while it's probably out of the question for the CRTC to regulate plan prices, they could perhaps regulate data overages.

Currently our Wireless Code mandates that carriers notify a customers when their data overages reach $100, and the customer must give their express consent to go over that limit. The unfortunate fact about that is data overages have gotten so expensive in this country that it's way too easy to reach the $100 threshold. I'll use two currently desirable Big Three plans as examples.

If you hadn't heard, Public Mobile is once again offering a promotion on their 90 day prepaid plan that effectively gives you 4 GB of data per month for $40. Since it's a prepaid plan you won't be dinged for extra data; you have to purchase it yourself in increments of 200 MB or 1 GB. But that extra 1 GB will cost you a whopping $30. On a $40 / 4 GB plan that just doesn't make sense.

Or take Koodo's Québec-only limited time offer of 6 GB for $49, available to anyone anywhere in Canada who's willing to jump through a few extra hoops. If you go over that 6 GB data allotment Koodo will charge you $5 per additional 100 MB, or an even more egregious $50 per GB!

Three years ago the standard data overage charge was a mere $10 per GB; what else but a Big Three cash grab can explain the skyrocketing rates? We need an intervention to stop this madness, and I'm hoping that the CRTC is up for the task...

I've nothing but respect for XDA recognized developer topjohnwu, but brazenly tweeting Google to boast that you've thwarted their tampering detection for Android is kinda dumb. I mean, it's fantastic that he was able to do it, just dumb to brag about it.

I first wrote about topjohnwu's Magisk last month, and have been relying on it ever since. It's killer feature, Magisk Hide, does what no other Android rooting solution has been able to: hide root from SafetyNet-enabled apps. So Android Pay now works with root; ditto for other banking apps, Netflix, Nintendo games, and so on.

The first hurdle for Magisk came two weeks ago, when the Magisk Manager app was pulled from the Play Store, not a huge deal because the flashable zip file—which includes the Magisk Manager apk—remains on XDA. Now a SafetyNet update seems to have broken Magisk Hide, but the issue is easily solved by updating to a beta version of Magisk. The sole developer of this incredible effort took to XDA to assure users:

I personally think there really is no effective method to prevent magiskhide to work, unless there exist some ways that's beyond my knowledge; they add more checks, and I hide more. Since Magisk is running as root but the SafetyNet checks are not, we are more privileged than the detection method, and as a result we have MUCH more control over what the SN process can see.

I don't doubt any of this, but I really hope that topjohnwu's Twitter braggadocio doesn't draw the ire of Google and end up ruining Magisk for everyone.

A respected Brazilian tech blog has leaked this image of the OnePlus 5, along with a confirmation of specs and, crucially for OnePlus's frugal customers, the price. If you think that no company could have the audacity to produce such a derivative-looking phone, think again—Android Police revealed a partial view last week, and then OnePlus themselves went ahead and did the same.

This week's Tecnoblog leak is significant because it appears to answer almost all of the remaining questions about the phone. Here's the spec sheet, with a little help from Google Translate and reddit:

Screen
5.5 inches
1920 x 1080 pixels
DCI-P3 Colors

Processor
Snapdragon 835

RAM
6 or 8 GB
LPDDR4X

Storage
64 or 128 GB
Dual-Band UFS 2.1

Battery
3,300 mAh
Dash Charge

Rear Cameras
20 MP, f/2.6
16 MP, f/1.7

Other
Bluetooth 5.0
LTE Cat 12
Fast Fingerprint Reader (0.2 seconds)

Price
$479 USD

That starting price, if true, is a pretty big deal; an unlocked iPhone 7 with only 32 GB of storage is currently going for almost $300 USD more at Apple.com. It would also be a big win for prospective OnePlus buyers, as blogs were reporting a rumored price tag as high as $650 USD just a few weeks ago.

And the homage to Apple shouldn't really surprise OnePlus fans, as co-founder Carl Pei is on record stating that the genesis of OnePlus was to bring an iPhone-like hardware experience to the Android platform. He certainly appears to have done that!

Two stories about this year's Pixel phones are topping the charts over on r/Android this morning. Details are obviously scant as the devices aren't due until later this year, but there already seems to be a consensus among those in the know that Google has three code names ready for production.

Actually, make that two, because one of them has been cancelled.

Android Police reports that "muskie", intended as the 2017 update to the Pixel XL, has been shelved. A leak to 9to5Google suggests that the device had insurmountable issues with battery life.

The good news is that an even bigger phone, code named "taimen", will supposedly fill the XL slot left vacant by muskie. Plot twist: while the smaller Pixel phone, "walleye", is expected from HTC, evidence suggests that taimen will be manufactured by LG. Both OEMs have a long and storied history with Android; HTC made the very first Nexus One and LG made the Nexus 5, possibly the best Nexus phone ever.

So hardcore Android fans needn't worry about the pedigree of their 2017 Pixel. Hopefully Google is worrying about adding dust and/or water resistance, and getting rid of the 2016 model's ungainly chin.

Here's another bombshell from WWDC last week: iOS 11 brings with it a brand new file format for storing photos. It's called the High Efficiency Image Format and uses the unwieldy suffix you see above. It's a new standard developed by the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and is used in video compression as well.

I found a helpful side-by-side visual comparison of HEIF and other file formats on this Nokia Github page. While I'm not seeing the claimed 50% smaller file sizes for still images, HEIF does very well against animated GIFs. So there's an obvious benefit here for Apple's proprietary Live Photos.

But here is also where HEIF gets a bit contentious. The HEIF image format is also part of a new video codec called HEVC (High Efficiency Video Codec) which will compete against another video codec called AV1. Whereas HEVC support requires licensing from no less than four patent pools, AV1 will be royalty free. Perhaps because of this AV1 already has broad support from companies including Adobe, Amazon, AMD, ARM, Broadcom, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix and Nvidia.

How you feel about open standards versus user experience will very likely influence your opinions on HEIF. But hopefully our apps, browsers and desktop streaming boxes will be able to support both.

Smartphone OEMs are winning the battle against smartphone bezels, it seems. With the Mi Mix leading the charge, LG and Samsung turned a regional skirmish into a global campaign. Even the inventor of Android himself has joined the fight, reclaiming almost all of the top bezel for his Essential Phone.

Later this year Apple will, with their 10th anniversary release, attempt the impossible—to put a fingerprint scanner underneath the screen of the iPhone 8. What you see above is only a fan render; note the presence of a headphone jack. #Courage. Anyway, Samsung wasn't able to accomplish this feat on their Galaxy flagships this year, and according to SamMobile they've have given up on it for the forthcoming Note 8 as well. But, as 9to5Mac reports, Apple has already filed patents for a Touch ID-enabled screen, and appears to be proceeding full steam ahead.

Here are two reasons why I think this is a bad idea.

The screen of your smartphone is simultaneously its most important and vulnerable component. If your screen cracks to the point where it is non-responsive there won't be any alternative way to authenticate yourself. It's possible that your 2017 flagship might also have an iris scanner, and it's also possible that your screen will be damaged to the point where that sub-screen technology won't work properly, either.

There's another, potentially even bigger issue. Since your cracked screen now has an embedded proprietary fingerprint scanner you will likely have no other option than to get it fixed at an authorized repair center. Replacing a smartphone screen isn't especially difficult if you have the proper parts and tools; third-party repair shops have been doing brisk business with butter-fingered users for years. But Apple especially has been fighting right to repair legislation across the USA, and a Touch ID-enabled screen would give them an unfair advantage in winning that war as well.

OpenSignal has published their semi-annual "state of LTE" report, with data from more than half a million devices across some 75 countries. The graph above is likely the one that you'll be most interested in, ranking average 4G download speeds by country. The top 10 are as follows:

The International Data Corporation (IDC) has published some stats for wearable sales in the first quarter of this year, which I caught on Liliputing. The big story? Fitbit has been overtaken in sales and market share by both Apple and Xiaomi. This doesn't necessarily mean that Fitbit has fallen out of favour with its user base, but might indicate that the market for fitness trackers is at the saturation point.

According to the numbers Apple and Samsung have both shown impressive year over year growth, at 64.1 and 90.8% respectively. Xiaomi's dominant market share certainly caught me by surprise, until I realized that their cheap and cheerful Mi Band 2 is available through Amazon Prime in Canada and the USA. Also of interest is the complete absence of any specific device running Android Wear. A breakdown of market share by wearable OS would have been instructive here.

To put wearable shipments in perspective, IDC reports that Samsung shipped 79.2 million phones in the same quarter as Apple's 3.6 million smartwatches and Xiaomi's 3.6 million fitness trackers. In other words, the addressable market for these things is still pretty small.